certainly a quiet morning in washington. maybe they are thinking about the fiscal cliff. who knows. well, our focus today and this morning is syria which is important, not just because more than 40,000 have died in the 21-month conflict but because there are new fears that the government may unleash deadly chemical weapons on its own people. that means more lives could be lost, and for americans it means that the u.s. would probably take action. president obama, secretary of state clinton and defense secretary leon panetta have warned president bashar al assad that using chemical weapons crosses the red line. >> the world is watching. the use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. >> so the question is what would that action look like? cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr has a look. >> reporter: randi, for defense secretary leon panetta, the major priority now is to try to determine syria's intent. does it intend to use chemical weapons? with the u.s. now believing the syrian government has chemical weapon-filled bombs, cnn has learned the pentagon is secretl